I suspect the chocolate stained nut bag you mentioned! Apparently 25% is a good amount to get out with a hydralic press so we aren't doing too bad without one!

Kerry - what do you think would happen if you took the remaining nib mass (after you removed that first 25g or so of butter), put it into a fine-mesh nut bag (or something equivalent), placed it in a strainer over a bowl, and dropped a weight on it? Do you think you might squeeze out another 10%-20%? Or would you just end up with a chocolate-stained nut bag?

Making Cocoa Butter

Finally put together a YouTube video on extracting cocoa butter from chocolate liquor - a way for 2 ingredient bean to bar folks to produce their own cocoa butter so they can use the EZtemper!

Yes I can relate to that. I use the seeding method and sometimes it takes ages to get it right.  And I know what you mean about the lumps. Sounds ike the EZtemper is worth the money. Thanks for your insights

.

I am no expert, but i can tell you what my experience has been. I have used Mycryo for 8+ years, and the EZ for 5 months. Mycryo is very hard to get to mix in without lumps. The temperatures are more critical. With the EZ, the silk mixes in at a wider range of temps, and is so much easier to mix in. When I teach tempering classes, I do side-by-side comparisons and different methods of tempering: seeding with tempered chocoolate, Mycryo, and EZ. There is no contest!! The EZ wins every time. The Mycryo is certainly a cheaper method, but not as effective. I think some of the problem is that as the Mycryo ages, it turns into beta 6 and it doesn't melt as easily as it should. It is a little spendy, but anything that makes my life easier is worth it:)

Hi

This sounds a great alternative for artisan chocolatiers like myself. However I am wondering about the difference between using this and Mycryo? A visiting French chef showed us this technique a few years ago and I have used it a few times. Same percentage, just sprinkle it in and stir. I have found that it can take a bit of stirring to dissolve at times, and may be more expensive ( but the machine is $1000), so that's a Lot of Mycryo. Is it just the convenience of having the silk ready to go?

EZtemper got a little write up in the Hot Chocolate section of Dessert Professional this month.

(Source:  Dessert Professional  Aug/Sept 2015 page 112)

Nah - using the chocolate was basically a bust! I did try it with commercial coverature as well - didn't really work any better.

Awesome.  I guess I meant by using the chocolate as a seed silk. Using the bean-to-bar, the experiments showed that it was very thick and difficult to mix in, and tempering was less than stellar.  I was curious if you'd tried that with a higher cb content chocolate.  I figure once I get my machine (I'll be placing an order towards the end of the month) I can try that with a smaller batch size and see how it works out but was curious to know if it was the cocoa solids causing the thickness or if it was just the lower cb content of the bean to bar chocolate you were using. Hence the asking about commercial couvertures - which will typically have a much higher cb content than some eating chocolates.

Tim - for your own as you suggest just decrease your added cocoa butter by 1% and add 1% silk.

Using commercial couverture I just add the 1% at the tail end - not worrying about the additional cocoa butter. If I've put aside a little bit of dark chocolate for painting eyes on bunnies I have often added a whole lot of 1%'s when I reheat and temper over and over and sometimes end up with pretty thin chocolate! But it still works fine on the eyes!

Today I tempered a batch of bean to bar that isn't two ingredient by just adding the 1% - here's a picture of it.

Wow, it's taken a few days to go over all the info in this and the egullet threads.  This sounds like it is exactly what I'm looking for as a tempering solution. 

I'm curious now, I'm a bean to bar maker that is just starting out. Cocoa butter is added to all of my chocolate bars, largely so that it has the consistency that I like when eating and working with to mold and dip.  So from this standpoint, it sounds like if I had the eztemper I'd just subtract the cocoa butter on the front end, and add the amount subtracted in the form of silk once I'm done, so it wouldnt alter my recipe at all.

The reason I'm posting though, is the trials of using chocolate in the eztemper seems to be using the 2 ingredient bean-to-bar chocolate for the trials. Have any tests been done to use anything with a higher cocoa butter content, such as using a commercial couverture?   Based on what I've read I'm already sold, so I guess it'd be more of a trial and error sort of thing, no?

The silk is indeed just cocoa butter with no additional ingredients - in a form that will provide a sufficient amount of form V crystals to almost instantly temper your chocolate. If you are making bean to bar with lecithin you would add it whenever you normally add it to your chocolate under construction. The 'silk' is added at the very end when you are ready to mold your product.

Is the "silk" just cocoa butter or does it have any other ingredients? How and when would you add lecithin to the chocolate?

Ok - gotta check this out - I've figured out how the bean to bar two ingredient guys can extract their own cocoa butter easily with no special equipment.

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/151287-eztemper-the-help-you-need-to-achieve-perfectly-tempered-chocolate-fast/?p=2030981

Thank your for your nformations kerry. I am using 10 % of cacao butter in my chocolate.

I'm not sure if you add additional cocoa butter to your bean to bar chocolate - but one of the things that many bean to bar producers have found is that their chocolate is too viscous for an automatic temperer. Another issue with the smaller automatic temperers (such as the Revolation) is that they require tempered seed chocolate placed behind the baffle to temper your chocolate - and most bean to bar manufacturers don't have tempered chocolate to use for this.

So to start - clean one of the stainless containers - fill it with cocoa butter and place in the EZtemper overnight. Give it a stir in the morning and make sure it has reached a creamy consistancy.  

Weigh and melt some of your bean to bar chocolate - let cool to 33.5 degrees C and add 1% of the weight of the chocolate of cocoa butter silk. Give it a stir. It will be tempered and ready to use. If you are molding it into bars I'd suggest that as soon as you see evidence of crystallization around the edges that you put the bar molds into the fridge for 10 to 15 minutes to carry off the latent heat of crystallization.

Hello kerry,

I have just receive my eztemper, i was looking for some infos before using it. Actually i was using "mycryo" cocoa butter to do my tempering before and i supposed that the eztemper will avoid me buying that (i am living in french guiana and have to order all my stuff to make chocolate abroad). I have a little experience about tempering wich i do with "bain marie". Now i am aiming to make more chocolate (i have a little scale of artisanale chocolate from tree to bar). I was thinking about buying an automatic temperer but don't really know what kind of the two methods (eztemper or automatic temperer) will be suitable for me.Any advice? Hope i made myself understood as my english is limited.

Tempered up some dark milk chocolate with the EZtemper last night and made a batch of freeze dried corn bark - yummy stuff! Ready to package in no time.

Exciting week for EZtemper -  @Rodney Alleguede  went to the Chocolate Acadamy in Montreal to teach them all about their new EZtemper.

I've been using my EZtemper to help me make some favours for the wedding of a friend's son.

http://forums.egullet.org/topic/151520-manitoulin-if-i-can-make-it-there…/?p=2024956

Results of experiments so far - http://forums.egullet.org/topic/151287-eztemper-the-help-you-need-to-achieve-perfectly-tempered-chocolate-fast/?p=2024120

I will delve deeper, a quick look on the web sight only stated Canada/USA, thank you 

I will delve deeper, a quick look on the web sight only stated Canada/USA, thank you 

The EZtemper ships worldwide and works with all voltages. It's the only one of it's kind in the world in this price range!

Does anyone know of a similar unit available in the UK? I have been looking at an automatic tempering machine to help speed the process up but this looks like it would be a lot more useful to me overall. Any advice would be much appreciated 

Water ganache using the EZtemper silk - http://forums.egullet.org/topic/151287-eztemper-the-help-you-need-to-achieve-perfectly-tempered-chocolate-fast/?p=2022800

Here's Rodney Alleguede (www.rodneyalleguede.com) at the FCIA event in NYC manning the 'cocktail table booth' for the introduction of the EZtemper. Lots of interest generated - and one lucky individual - Elaine Boxer of @voilaChocolat took one home!

If you are going to be at the FCIA this weekend - drop by the booth (cocktail table), say hey to Rodney and Jess - get them to talk to you about the EZtemper and put your business card in the draw for a free unit.  

https://www.facebook.com/FineChocolateIndustryAssociation?fref=nf

Further experiments with chocolate as seed in place of cocoa butter - using bean to bar chocolate.  http://forums.egullet.org/topic/151287-eztemper-the-help-you-need-to-achieve-perfectly-tempered-chocolate-fast/?p=2021063  - will just link rather than duplicating here.

Plugging away editing video for the website - finally got this one up.

Ganache with EZtemper

A bit of a challenge - but I made a video showing tempering and working with white chocolate using EZtemper - shows working with the chocolate at a much higher temperature allowing you to get a nice thin shell.

Wish there was a 'Like' button Sebastian! 

I can just picture how they discovered that technique led to better ganaches.  Someone screwed up - the ganache was clumpy and almost impossible to work with - someone added a bit more cream - beat the hell out of it and voila - the BEST ganache that was ever made!

I wouldn't think so Ruth, but it never hurts to do the test - that's how we learn new things sometimes!  

Kerry - the only reason Aw would be lower because of mixing would be that there were 'pockets' of high Aw areas, and testing done happened to hit one of those pockets.  It's not a function of mixing lowering Aw, it's more a function of ensuring homogeniety.  I see chefs all the time make technical errors as they're trying to explain why this or that technique is better than the other guys' technique.  The fusion of culinary and technology's a pretty cool place to be, but a lot of people don't really understand it, and as such it ends up being theater to some degree.

Interesting though - Valrhona claims that is you mix your ganache the way that Frederick Bau shows in the video - that the aW will be lower. I have plans to test the theory!

Sebastian, I was just wondering if it allows you to get a really good emulsion, and sets quickly, if it would affect it in anyway. Probably not:)

I wouldn't expect the form of the cocoa butter to have any impact on Aw of the finished product.

I wonder if on sitting it will change over time? Have to experiment and report.

So - I'm trying to make some video footage (can you say frustrated beyond belief!) - so this morning I had some ganache to which I had added silk and some that I had not.  The aW differerence was no more than 0.01 between them - but I'd love it if you would do some tests as well.

Kerry, Have you checked aW to see if it has changed?

A little fooling around - I set one of my EZtemper units at 35 - put coloured cocoa butter in overnight and splattered and sprayed with my Fuji. Tempered some dark chocolate with the silk - added some silk to the ganache which allowed me to back them off in less than 30 minutes.

While others were BBQing yesterday, I was making my version of Dulcey. I sealed 1000g of white chocolate in a Food Saver bag and pressure cooked for 90 minutes on high. Stirred thick mass and it thinned as it cooled. Added the EZtemper silk when temp was 89f. Moulded bars just so I have a tempered breakup bar. The eztemper silk made this a quick process.